At Last!

Here's Charlie after final painting... He's ready for clear coat.


Here's Willard ("Old School") and he's ready for clear coating.

Charley Becomes a Man of Color

After sanding with 180 'til my fingers were without nails and fast becoming a series of bloody stumps, I decided to ignore advice and simply apply canned automotive primer to see where the glaring problems were. Volia! here is Charley [think "Two and a Half Men"...] ("Clown Lure") before I began the touch up with "icing" product. Real Primer comes tommorrow for Charley and Willard ("Old School").
For some reason it has taken me awhile to forget that these are materials for repairing automobiles and think of it as more experimental modeling technique. With the canned primer, I think I got over trying to repair a car and started to think of just making this piece with whatever tools and techniques are at hand...Sometimes i'm a little slower on the uptake than I imagine myself to be. Duh!

The Surgery Went Well

The Diving Bill Transplant surgery was a success and the patient is back on his hooks and recovering nicely. "Old School" has also had his eyes done following the transplant so that they are now round and hard coated with body filler.

The original diving bill was cut from aluminum but proved too thick for my brake to bend - also too thick for my friend JW's bigger brake. The bill is now thinner and steel - but very nicely formed...

Everything takes Longer than you Expect: It's a Rule

Working on the CWP lures is taking Wa-a-a-a-y Longer than I planned. Cutting and fitting each piece of foam to fit the contour of the blank and then carving the final form and glueing them individually to the blank is slow going. Nevertheless, I'm please with the result. Next is applying the fiberglass resin to the foam to fix it as hardened like the blank. This will require repeated sandings and more carving to get the final shapes right but hopefully it will be worth the effort to the CWP.

The heat has been so intense here (102-106 F) that the resin and hardner mix sets up almost instantly so I've moved the first lure from my studio to my home garage to take advantage of the household A/C and get the temps down around 75-78 F. I'll start with the resin mix in the am.

Pink Fish

The ClownFish Lure under development for the Clean Water Partnership Fund raiser. This is more work than it looks like...Hope they get lots of bucks for these things!

To see more photos visit the CWP Lure Project link on the right of this page.